User Comments - babyeggplant
babyeggplant
Posted on: Don't push me!
July 25, 2011 at 10:22 PMYeah, the 死了 is quite a versatile expression. Like timlb said, it's similar to the expression "something something to death" in English, but is used even more in Chinese. Here's some other examples:
饿色了 -Starving
气死了 - furious
憋死了－I've heard someone say this when they waited a long time to go to the bathroom. 憋 means hold.
忙死了 －really busy
累死了 －exhausted
臭死了－ stinky
Posted on: Meeting in Real Life
July 25, 2011 at 5:38 PM连我的家人都不支持我
Posted on: The Seven Year Itch
July 22, 2011 at 2:16 PMJenny 录音的时候是不是有点饿了？:)
Posted on: Having Spare Keys Made
July 17, 2011 at 3:32 AMI guess the 电灯泡 is universal.
Posted on: Having Spare Keys Made
July 17, 2011 at 2:50 AMAll good points. To be honest, I don't know why it was translated as "asked." I think that the "from me" takes care of the 向. With 向 and 问 looking so similar, maybe the translator even read the sentence too quickly and translated it as 问。Unlikely, but you never know I guess! What I think is more probable is that the translator just chose to translate the sentence in a way that we would commonly say it in English, which I am totally in support of.
Posted on: Having Spare Keys Made
July 16, 2011 at 8:16 PMI agree that it's past tense here (borrowed) because of what you mentioned above. However, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about 向. If you're saying that 向 here means to transfer, I don't agree with that. I think the transfer of money comes from the 借 rather than the 向. The 向 just tells us who borrows the money from who. Again, maybe I'm just not understanding what you're saying and I apologize if that's the case.
I think this example is particularly difficult to discuss because I would normally just translate 向 as "to." For example:
他向我表白了。 He expressed his feelings to me.
替我向你全家人问好。Say hello to all of your family for me.
But in the expansion sentence, it wouldn't really make sense if we used "to."
他昨天向我借了五百块钱。Yesterday he (to me) borrowed 500 kuai。That obviously is not correct, so the most normal way to say it is, "Yesterday he (from me) borrowed 500 yuan." And that most naturally turns into "Yesterday he borrowed 500 yuan from me."
Posted on: I'm gonna be Late
July 16, 2011 at 5:20 PM他今天又迟到了.The phrase "迟到了" here is past tense. The "了” at the end indicates that the action has already been completed. You're right that putting a "了" behind something doesn't always indicate that the action already happened (as in the example I gave you above) but in this case it does.
Posted on: Having Spare Keys Made
July 15, 2011 at 9:18 PMI agree with Jerry that 向 here is talking about the direction of the action, rather than holding the meaning of "ask." And the action here is the borrowing of money. I think asked could actually be removed from the translation. The 向我 is more like "from me."
Posted on: I'm gonna be Late
July 15, 2011 at 9:07 PMI think the best translation for "He's late again today" (assuming you mean that the person hasn't arrived yet) is, "他又要迟到了。"
Posted on: Meeting in Real Life
July 25, 2011 at 11:19 PMWhat does 朝 mean here? Is it the 量词？